


like red on white

by totallybalanced



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Best Friends, I'm Sorry, I'm so sorry, M/M, boyfriends if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-06
Updated: 2012-09-06
Packaged: 2017-11-13 16:58:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/505715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/totallybalanced/pseuds/totallybalanced
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was too much blood. It blossomed around his knees in thick crimson swirls, thinning at the edges to a dusky pink as it mixed with the melting ice beneath them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	like red on white

There was too much blood.

It blossomed around his knees in thick crimson swirls, thinning at the edges to a dusky pink as it mixed with the melting ice beneath them. He reached up to brush a damp strand of hair away from his eyes again; the blood on his hands left a dark red smear across his forehead. He was shaking again, partly due to the adrenalin pumping through his body but mostly because of the cold. It was so damn cold. Despite his shivers, his skilled hands didn't falter as he tore another strip of material from his over-shirt and wrapped it tightly around the tattered flesh just above Jim's knee. He muttered a hoarse apology when Jim choked a gargled scream as he tied off the tourniquet.

"Bones-"

"Don't try to talk, Jim. Just keep still and let me stop this bleeding, okay?"

McCoy tore a couple more long strips from his shirt and tied them together the best he could before rolling Jim as gently as possible onto his side, allowing him to pass the makeshift bandage underneath his injured friend and back round to his front where he tied it off, securing the compress he'd been trying to hold firm against the wound just below Jim's ribs.

McCoy checked all of the bandages again, his deft fingers prodded and pulled at the knots and wads of blood soaked material to make sure they were all in place. For the first time since beaming down on this god forsaken planet, he was almost grateful for the cold biting against his skin as the low temperature was helping to slow Jim's blood flow. But it was no good being able to stop him bleeding out if they were both going to freeze to death anyway. He leaned back on his heels and grimaced when the blood stained ice that had started to freeze again beneath his knees cracked and shattered. _We're not going to last long in this temperature_ , he thought solemnly.

He shifted his feet from beneath him and settled as comfortably as he could on the hard surface next to Jim who, much to McCoy's dismay had slipped into unconsciousness again.

"Far too much blood," McCoy said to no one in particular.

 

* * *

 

"Bones?"

McCoy raised his head from the top of his knees. "Hey, kid. You gave me quite a scare back there."

"You let me fall asleep?" Jim asked slowly, his hoarse voice barely louder than a whisper.

"I thought I'd let you get your beauty rest," McCoy said dryly.

Jim's tongue darted out to lick his lips; one swipe across his mouth left a glistening trail of red. "Yeah right," he said with a quiet chuckle. His chest suddenly shuddered as the laugh turned into a wet, gurgle of a cough and he struggled to catch his breath. McCoy placed a hand on Jim's shoulder until the coughing fit subsided. "Take it easy, okay?"

Once Jim managed to catch his breath, he tried to lift his head only to have McCoy squeeze his shoulder gently. "Hey, I told you to take it easy."

Jim let his head rest back down on the cold, hard stone floor. "I can't feel much below my chest."

"Your dick is still there if that's what you're worried about."

"You're not supposed to make me laugh," Jim said, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, "but thanks for the reassurance." His tongue darted across his lips again. "So what's the diagnoses, doc?"

McCoy took a deep breath and rubbed idly at his jaw with one blood stained hand. "Well you've got one broken leg, two broken ribs and you've managed to shred most of the muscle just below your right knee."

"Is that all?"

"A mild concussion and you're going to have a gorgeous bruise down the left side of your face before the night is out."

"I can't see much. Everything's really blurry."

"You'll be fine," McCoy said without missing a beat, "you'll back on your feet in no time." 

There was a wet gurgling sound from somewhere deep within Jim's chest as he tried to take another deep breath. A small bubble of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth and sat there for a moment before it burst, leaving behind flecks of dark red against his slowly purpling skin. "You're such bad liar," Jim said eventually, "and I don’t- I don't _want_ you to lie to me."

"Please don't do this, Jim," McCoy whispered. "Don't _make_ me do this. Not with you."

"I can't feel anything below my waist, Bones. My head is pounding like I've got the worse hangover ever without the fun of night before, I'm having trouble breathing and despite the fact that my vision is completely fucked, I can still see that I'm laying in a pool of my own blood." Jim paused to take a slow, gargled breath. "And I wish you could see what you look like, Bones. You're covered in blood. My blood. _Christ_ , you can't look me in the eye and tell me I'm going to be okay."

McCoy allowed his gaze to drift slowly down his friend’s broken body and back again, his eyes eventually meeting Jim's. "You'll never walk again," he started slowly. "The bones in your left leg are completely shattered and you've managed to strip away most of the flesh and muscle on your right. The reason you can't feel any of that is because you've most likely damaged the lower half of your spinal cord. You've broken two ribs and you've got internal bleeding, I think it's from your spleen but I can't be sure. You hit your head hard enough to make me believe we wouldn't be having this conversation," he paused and shook his head slowly. "And I don't understand how the hell you're as lucid as you are, kid. You're one stubborn son of a bitch!"

There was a long pause as Jim held McCoy's gaze. He opened his mouth as if to say something but decided otherwise, choosing instead to turn his head away quietly.

Instead of pushing the conversation further, McCoy pulled his knees closer to his chest and shivered against the cold, He glanced up at the patch of dusky indigo sky he could see through the hole above them. They were about 20ft down in some kind of cave, surrounded on three sides by steep walls of solid rock. The fourth side was slanted at more of an angle and pitted with deep cracks and small ledges that had allowed McCoy to climb down from the surface but he knew there was no way he'd ever be able to climb back up again.

As if he was reading McCoy's mind, Jim lifted one arm weakly and pointed at the wall. "I can't believe you managed to climb down that. You could have broken your neck."

"Hell, even I can't believe I managed to climb down without killing myself," McCoy replied. "But I wasn't about to leave you down here, was I?"

"You should have."

"Hey," McCoy said, his voice shaking with anger, "don't you dare start talking like that! Do you honestly think I could've watched you fall all this way just to sit up there twiddling my fucking thumbs until you bled to death?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"

"Just don't believe for one second that I could have walked away."

Jim offered a weak nod and mumbled another apology. After a few minutes of quiet stillness, he tried to shift his head to the side to get a better view of their surroundings. Even in the dimming light of the cave, McCoy could see that Jim's eyes had dulled from their usual shade of cobalt blue to an almost steel grey; his left iris was nothing more than a dull ring of pale colour surrounding a blown pupil.

Eventually Jim grunted in pain and stopped trying to move his head; instead he fixed his gaze back on McCoy. "How did we end up down here anyway?" he asked. "Last thing I remember was standing on the ice field with everyone else. I pulled you aside to ask you something and then-"

"You managed to step on something that was half-buried in the ice-"

"It was some kind of transporter, right?"

"Yeah, it put us right on the edge up there."

"Then I took a step back-"

"And now here we are," McCoy finished. "Actually I have no idea here is. We can be thankful we're at least on the same frozen wasteland of a planet as we were before, but can't even begin to guess how far that godforsaken transporter threw us."

"The communicators?"

"Yours got shattered when you fell and mine is useless. I think there was probably some kind of energy surge when we transported, everything got fried."

Jim smiled. "Thwarted by modern technology once again."

"Damn right," McCoy replied with a sad smile. "I just wish that we- that I had been better equipped before we left the ship. If I at least had my medical kit, I could-" 

"Bones, this was never a mission," Jim interrupted. "There was no need to suit up with all the usual gear."

It was true that their visit to the small, un-named planet was never part of an intended mission as scans had shown that the icy planet was completely devoid of life, despite being more than suitable to sustain it. Before Jim had given the order to jump to warp, Spock had produced a vast array of data that showed how the current alignment of the surrounding planets, combined with various other factors involving magnetic fields and temperature fluctuations, would make a visit to the planet a pleasant and interesting experience for the crew of the Enterprise.

In short, Spock had suggested that the crew should not miss out on the planet's unique sunset.

So that's how they had ended up on the ice field; wrapped up warm in over shirts and thick coats as the sky above them had blazed orange and red with the setting sun. Once the last flares of orange had vanished below the horizon, the sky had faded to a dusky indigo colour. Streaks of electric blue and deep purple had slowly started to appear, dancing across the twilight sky in slow, luminescent swirls of colour. It had been beautiful.

"What did you want to ask me?" McCoy asked suddenly.

"When?"

"On the ice field. You pulled me aside to ask something."

Jim's eyebrows pulled together as he slowly contemplated his answer. "I wanted to ask you if you would've considered coming home with me next time we returned to Earth."

"Iowa?"

"Only if you had nothing better to do. You mentioned that Jocelyn was planning to take Joanna off world for a few weeks around the time we get back and I don't want you to be wasting your shore leave just killing time if you don't get to see your daughter."

McCoy raised his hand to protest. "Jim-"

Jim ignored McCoy's interruption. "I wanted you to meet my Mom, y'know? She knows how much you mean to me and how much of what happened to me in the last few years has been because of you. So much of what I've achieved is because you never left me behind. Even when you thought I was being an idiot, you always stood by me and I was hoping-"

Jim's last words were cut off suddenly as his body was thrown into a violent spasm. A fresh wave of blood spurted from his mouth, leaving thick trails of red down the side of his cheeks. Within a couple of seconds, McCoy had managed to grab Jim's shoulders and had shifted himself behind the convulsing figure so that each of his legs were flush against Jim's sides and his head was resting up near McCoy's stomach. He held Jim tight, one hand flat against his shuddering chest as he tried to clear the blood from Jim's mouth with the other. McCoy could only hope that Jim didn't choke on his own damn tongue before the convulsion stopped.

The convulsion lasted only a few more seconds before the spasms shuddered to a halt and Jim's eyes went wide as he tried to breath. It took him a while before his fast, shallow gasps slowed to deeper, wet drawls of air but the blood still bubbled slowly from Jim's mouth every time he exhaled.

Eventually, Jim tried to talk. "Bones-"

With one hand still flat on Jim's chest, McCoy caressed his friends wet cheek with the thumb of his other. "Don't talk, Jim. Just focus on your breathing, okay? You'll be fine as long as you don't have another convulsion like that."

A wet sound that almost resembled a chuckle bubbled from Jim's throat. "Liar," he whispered.

"I'm sorry," McCoy offered quietly. He could barely hear his own voice over the sound of Jim's ragged breathing. "I'm sorry I couldn't save you."

Jim's mouth opened into a wide grin. It would have been a dazzling smile if not for the dark blood that had stained his teeth a deep shade of red. "You stayed," he said, his words slowing to an almost incoherent slur. "S'more than enough for me."

"I couldn't have walked away."

"Bones?"

"Yeah, Jim?"

"S'all okay. I'm- I'm okay."

"Jim, you're not-"

"You can lie to me if you want," Jim rasped. "If you want to pretend."

McCoy took a few shaky deep breaths as he pulled Jim closer to his chest. "I don't want to lie to you, kid. I just want you to know that you're the best thing that's happened to me in the last five years. Sometimes I wonder how things would have played out if I hadn't sat next to you on that shuttle. How different would our lives have been?" he choked a small laugh. "Thinking on it, I probably would have been killed alongside everyone else that got posted aboard a starship that day. Anyway, there's no use in thinking about what could have been, eh?"

Jim's eyes had closed but he was still breathing in slow, ragged gasps.

McCoy lowered his head closer to Jim's ear and whispered. "I would have said yes, y'know? I would have gone back to Iowa with you and met your Mom. She must be one hell of a woman to have managed raising a pain in the ass like you without going crazy." He closed his eyes and felt hot tears streaking through the dried blood on his cheeks. "You're my best friend, Jim. I'll tell her that when I see her, okay? I'll tell her what you did for me, what you did for all of us."

Even though twilight had finally melted into night, the cave was still bathed in a rippling pale blue light as the planet's atmospheric phenomena continued to dance across the sky above them. The streaks of blue and purple swirled directly above the lip of the cave for a few seconds, bathing the deep hole in a bright, electric blue for one fleeting moment.

The momentary flash of light went unnoticed by McCoy. His attention was focused solely on the last flicker of movement that rippled through Jim's chest.

He curled his fingers tightly into Jim's shirt.

"Don't leave me. Please."

 

* * *

 

Twenty minutes later, McCoy heard the crunching of snow beneath shoes from somewhere above him.

Out of the darkness, voices called their names. Eventually, only one called back.

**Author's Note:**

> Ugh so I'm not much of a writer, okay? But back when Trek was first out I just got this fic in my head and it wouldn't go away until I had put it to paper. To this day it's legitimately the most traumatic thing I've ever attempted to write and I don't particularly want to put myself through it again.


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